Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Along with the many other changes I've been going through with my whole "get chubby and lazy in just 5 months!" plan has come a feeling of freedom. I'm not bound by a workout schedule, a food schedule, a calorie counting schedule. It's delightful, but also weird.

I'm traveling for work this week. This is my first work trip where I've been free to just do whatever. This means that for food yesterday I had a normal breakfast, an airport wrap for lunch (hummus wrap = tons of hummus in a tortilla... is this a thing now? I'd like to make it a thing), and caramel/cheesy popcorn for dinner

Garrett's Popcorn in O'Hare Airport.... I will return to you, and we will live out our lives together in caramelly harmony. I recommend every order the Chicago Mix. Now. Pay the shipping. I'm having some sent to my hotel. No shame.

I wasn't hungry after that hearty dinner, so I didn't eat anything else. Just kidding, I ate ice cream. Because I'm human. Today, I went to training all day and daydreamed about what I'd have for dinner. I'm not in the culinary capital of the world, but I was excited about experiencing a new restaurant.

Not counting calories or stressing about exactly when and where I would eat (daydreaming, yes, stressing, no) feels great. I did have a bit of guilt over the massive amount of oily popcorn I had for dinner, but that passed, and I lived to eat another meal. It's not like this is a huge victory for a normal person, but for me it's nice to just chill and live life with fewer rules. Life is happier when, sometimes, you just eat popcorn for dinner.

Friday, May 16, 2014

Disclaimer: I detest people who talk about the weather. I detest them with the fire of a thousand suns. The only acceptable weather comments are "hey, it's nice out! I should work in my garden/go for a bike ride/walk my dog" or "Gosh, this is a really intense hurricane/blizzard/tornado." So I'm being a huge hypocrite. Whatever.

I'm turning into a Leslie Knope fangirl.

In Maryland, we tend to have a really short spring. We go from "winter" (which is sometimes actually cold, but usually fairly balmy) to "summer" (which gets quotation marks because it's not a season, it's hell). This year has been no exception. And I find myself delighting in the hot weather and humidity. Why? Because I'm not running, suckers!

Yes, I'm still bummed that I'm not running. And blah blah blah infertility sucks, but today I am happy I am not forcing myself to walk out into the near 90 degree weather with 70% humidity and drag myself along the black asphalt, next to hot, speeding cars, dodging decomposing animals and gagging next to fields that I swear were fertilized with fish bodies (is this a thing? The fields legitimately smell like Red Lobster's dumpster). I will play with my puppy, make a nice, relaxed dinner, walk on the treadmill in the air conditioning if I feel like it, and feel self-satisfied.

I can nap with my happy dog and no training plan induced guilt will touch me.

Trying to find the bright side to all of this is much easier when I'm changing into my pajamas at 6pm instead of returning from a run and cleaning up my sweat off the floor. Laziness FTW.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Kiwi brought us a glove she found outside. It's now her "outside toy" because frisbees and balls do nothing for her. I love that she brought us the glove like it was an animal she caught.

Fat dog in a little coat. She's doubled in size since we bought this coat for her. Awww.

She destroyed this toy in a couple of days. It used to be a frog. I sewed up his eye but now his poor head is misshapen. Kiwi remains unphased.

And some Random thoughts...

- I thought we had all learned about the wastefulness of bottled water, but no. I have a coworker who drinks 4 bottles a day. Every Monday she brings in one of those small pallet things and drinks it all week. I am totally judging her for the amount of waste she creates (and doesn't recycle... I might have peeked in her trash...)

-Apparently I'm full of coworker gripes. I have a new cube neighbor who, because of the nature of his job, gets lots of visitors. This means there are people standing outside my cube talking all day long. Cannot handle it.

-An insurance company denied my claim for one of my meds this week "due to diagnosis" and although I was very calm with the woman, this was my internal dialogue:

-I made these from Oh She Glows last week. I was so delighted I had 95% of the ingredients (I omitted hemp seeds)! They were incredibly easy and amazing. Super rich. We're a fan of raw brownie type things in our home. This is our other favorite dessert.

That's about it. I wish I had more profound things to share, but nope.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

For the second time in my adult life, I have quit caffeine. You may recall I did this last year when I did the whole elimination diet. It was wildly successful. Not. I had a rough time for a couple weeks, then things settled out and I pretty much lived my life without it. Until I decided I'd had enough, and just jumped right back into coffee drinking.

Cute or terrifying? Can't he be both?

Coffee is a bit of a slippery slope for me. I can have a cup a day, but then one day I'll have 2, like how nice that afternoon lift feels, and have 2 from then on. Then, I might have a long meeting to go to, or I'm cold, or bored, or didn't sleep well, and I have a third cup and there's no looking back. I rarely go past the third cup, because things get weird for me after that. I'm fairly sensitive to the effects of caffeine, so I get jittery, headachey, and overall just terrible feeling very quickly

I'm about a week into the no coffee thing, and it's going ok. I miss the whole "come in to work, have a warm cup of coffee, ease into the day" thing. My withdrawal headaches have passed though, which is nice. I'm doing well. I think.

And since I failed to use this gif when it was VERY appropriate in a previous post, here it is, with no context.

Monday, May 5, 2014

Ever since I went off the pill and didn't get my period, I've been struggling to not use "9 months from now" as a reference point for everything. It started off innocently enough:

"If I get pregnant now, I won't be able to drink at our friends' wedding in October"

"If I get pregnant now, I'll be running a marathon pregnant! Neato!"

That cart is going nowhere.

As the months passed, scheduling things in the future felt like playing a cruel game. Should I schedule this or will I be pregnant? Should we go on vacation? Will I not be able to fly? Then when we started seeing the reproductive endocrinologist, it got worse. Will I need to bring meds with me when we go visit family at the holidays (answer: yes)? Will I need to give myself an injection at that party (also yes)? Will I be so bloated from the meds that I won't be able to wear normal clothes (and a big old yes)?

I am an obsessive person.

When we started this whole journey, I wanted complete control of everything, and I wanted control NOW. Finding out that my body doesn't work like it should and that I wouldn't have complete control over every little thing has been a big adjustment. I am best friends with Dr. Google, and my list of recent searches is pretty embarrassing (hormones pretty much cause everything, so yes, everything is a symptom of pregnancy/ovulation/ruptured bowels/meningitis). There's just so much science involved in the whole reproduction thing, and that's super fascinating to me, while also meaning I am getting just enough knowledge to be a little dangerous, and not enough knowledge to actually know what the hell I'm talking about.

The key to this whole thing is patience, of which I have none (that's grammatically correct, right? It sounds awful typed out). I am trying to just take it day by day, but knowing your body is screwed up kind of takes over your life. I want to be better, now. I want to stop using 9 months from now as a reference point.